3 ms·
i’ve recently had a revelatory experience with my cofounder, who is focused entirely on sales. we were pitching our product/services to the company execs- and h
by laborcontract 2y ago
i’ve recently had a revelatory experience with my cofounder, who is focused entirely on sales. we were pitching our product/services to the company execs- and he just owned the room. He definitely oversold, hallucinated a little bit, said some (many) things i never would have said, but he didn’t lie. I have a highly diminished opinion of my talents than compared to reality and i know it. And i can’t fix it, i’ve tried.
In that meeting, there are times i wanted to interject to add some context, they very skillfully pulled me away from talking too much and qualifying everything.
We got our first sale. Big client, big company, very important sale.
Came out of that meeting daze because that’s when i internalized it - im worth no more than half the company. It was truly revelatory. I’m writing all the code, all the “hard” work is on me. I dont care.
Before that, i spent two years on my own project with zero traction because i didn’t even want to sell it, i just wanted to make it better. by the end i was gasping for air.
If you can find a good decent person who has a great network and a knack for sales (and is fine doing administrative work) by god, let go of your ego and give them room to cook and have faith in yourself to ship.
I spent the first half of my career deriding and diminishing the effort of salespeople. Never again.
- flappyeagle 2y agoWhen you watch a great salesperson in action it’s like magic. It’s like watching a chess player find moves you couldn’t have found in a million years. They chose the right words that converted to motions of neurons in your counterparty that caused action by them to give you money. Crazy.
- laborcontract 2y agoI literally couldn’t stop shaking my head on the commute home. I’ve always had the habit of underselling myself. I would have never made that pitch. But he made them believe in the product and in that process made me believe in it too.
- ggeorgovassilis 2y ago> When you watch a great salesperson in action it’s like magic. That, a hundred times. It's otherworldly, transcends laws of reality. That's why I dislike most salespeople I met, who don't tire of iterating how important sales are, but never come even close to what a great salesperson can deliver.
- throwaway7ahgb 2y agoIn my history the best sales people I've met wouldn't have me believe they were in sales at all. They are just great at relationships and solving problems for clients. You want to give them your money to solve your problem.
- protocolture 2y agoYes my former business partner is a rare hybrid of super competant salesperson and super competant engineer. I sometimes just enjoyed reading his contracts.